Office of Criminal Investigation

Report a Data Breach

A data breach occurs when information is stolen from a system without the authorization of the system’s owner. Cybercriminals have an increasing focus on breaching businesses’ and tax professionals’ systems and stealing client data. The stolen data may be used to file fraudulent tax returns.

Examples of stolen data may include:

Social Security numbers;

Driver’s License numbers;

Credit card or bank account numbers;

W-2 information;

Medical Insurance Identifiers.

Other data breach methods include the following:

Insider leak: a person of authority with access privileges within a company steals data;

Loss or theft: portable drives, laptops, office computers, files, or other physical properties are lost or stolen;

Unintended disclosure: sensitive data is exposed through mistakes by an employee.